Topic: personal dilemma (Read 2952 times)

That would be my suggestion too. You could take the loan if its not too expensive
or you could just drive your old car as long as you can. Car value always goes down but BTC will surely rise.

I would suggest you to take loan instead if the loan is cheap, BTC value might go up to $1000 soon..

No, it can't.  I have a MPG gauge on my car and I have had tires at half air and it didn't change less than .5 MPG.  That's about 2%, not 10%.

I agree though.  Fix the car and get a new car next year or the year after.  You'll thank us when you are driving around in your Rolls Royce...

If the clutch is only the issue - sell 2 btc (if you have no spare fiat) and repair it.

Sell btc now buy $300 sell $400 again

Since you are working I suggest you keeping BTC aside and pay with your salary...

   Don't take out a loan- paying interest, even if it is half a percent, is a bad idea. I agree with the advice to get a used car. It will do everything you need it too, and while it may not be as impressive or get you as high status, at least you will minimize your exposure to fiat.

Shermo, my daily driver is a 21-year old full-sized van with a petrol/gas V8. It just ticked over 151,000 miles. It gets good mileage for what it is, and my daily commute is only 15 minutes. There is no public transportation choice for me, I live in a rural area. I need it because I am a musician, and haul big heavy stuff every week. I have been maintaining it since new, and I would not be afraid to leave in it tomorrow to cross my continent. Basic parts are cheap and plentiful, I hope to get another 10 years out of it. It has some 'ugly factor' going on, but it is reliable.

Here's two good cheap things you can do for your car to perk it up, if they haven't been done for a while. Change the spark plugs. It takes a cheap socket wrench with a 'plug socket' (special deep socket for a spark plug). When you buy the spark plugs, tell them your vehicle/year and ask them about the gap (a space that is adjustable). If it is any kind of auto parts store they will have a gap gauge, ask them to set the gap correctly.   Also, buy an air filter, and replace it. This is easy, often requires no tools, and you can do it standing up. Also, keep an eye on your tire pressure. One low tire can cost you 10% gas mileage, and wear faster.

These easy things alone will make it start better, run better, and get better gas mileage!

But if your clutch is going out, don't ignore that!

Sell a half of it now and keep another half stashed away.

Problem is - you will always face this dilemma. When price is 100, when price is 500, does not matter. It will always be a pain in the ass to decide. I would hold if I had no need for boost from selling BTC. But what's the point of sitting on your BTC waiting for the price to rise, while your family is starving?

I had a realistic think about things and decided for now I will just try and keep this car running, its nearly 9 years old, about 70,000 miles so its no spring chicken especially for a petrol engine. It doesn't sound as healthy as it used to but I think the only major issue at the moment is the clutch probably needing replacing in the near future. £500 is nothing in reality if I get several more years out of it.

Also, public transport is great where I live now (busses and trams to near work), but I am moving soon further into the sticks where its 1 train per hour so car is definitely better!

I know about money-pit cars, and conversely I have kept otherwise junkers on the road safely and economically for many years.

If you are mechanically inclined, have minimal hand tools and a set of car ramps, you can do a lot to both keep a car going and save money. Replacing a clutch is out of the realm of driveway/car ramp DIY usually. Remember that a clutch is a normal wear-and-tear item, like brakes. It's life can be drastically shortened by misuse (a beginning driver slipping it all the time, as you have found) but once it is replaced, it is literally as new.

What is the rest of the car like? It's easy to get discouraged at a car and just want to be rid of it. Different aspects of cars are more important to different people. If it is high mileage, and/or old there can be more little things ahead. If it's interior is not pretty anymore or paint is faded, that doesn't affect reliability.

+1 on public transportation, if it works for you.

if you are in europe, isn't public transportation pretty good? call me crazy, but i would just take the bus and save my coin.. it has the potential to provide you an early retirement. all that for the cost of not having a car to worry about? i'd take it.

The price for Bitcoin is really high right now.. I don't know if you should risk it.. But since you said you can tank the price with your salary then why not?

The price will continue to rise gradually over time -- don't be too impressed by short term swings up and down.

I would recommend having a stash of bitcoins that gradually increases (mining, mining contracts, low risk gambling sequences etc), and simply taking the cream off the top in small pieces -- but to keep a core stash, and keep growing it in different ways.

BTC investments need to be non-essential money to be tapped into for fun when you need or want something small. I would not use sell off the whole stash in one go.

This will sound like your dad, but anyway...

I want you to think of this another way.  You should separate out the issues.  A basic need in life for where most of us live is a healthy reliable car [1].  If your car is on the way out or causing stress in some manner you need to acquire a new (to you) one.

Never go into debt to buy a car for more then 6,000 USD.  If you can't afford a 6k car then get a loan to acquire one worth about 6k.  Having something with basic reliability, clean, and well running is important to freeing up your life to pursue other ventures without needless wasting resources.

I would sell 6k worth of btc to acquire a car today if you can't pay cash for it.  This is coming from a guy that has sold btc in the past to acquire things that if I hadn't the present value of btc lost for those items is amazing.  A 300k motorcycle (purchased for 4k usd worth btc at the time), the 60k necklace for my wife (500 usd worth of btc at the time), etc.

I don't regret any of this.

I would NOT take out a conventional loan for a 6k car if I could acquire it with selling btc today, only because you're doubling down on your finical risk.

Move your life forward a little, and if this crashes you are in a better spot then before.  I don't believe it will crash soon (maybe not ever), but I do know that regrets come from both sides of this game.  If you can modestly and prudently move your life forward by liquidating a few btc then do it.

I think a good rule is to pull 20% of your btc profits annually for things like other investments, or a little better standard of living.

Try not to make it an all or nothing game.



[1] - note I didn't say flashy/expensive high end fools toy

Just get as much as you can and hold. Works everytime 

I wont be cashing out my BTC for at least 5 years, if it goes to nothing i havent lost a great deal, the upside is just too big to take a small profit now.

As mentioned by others, forget about them and assume you never had them, you may get a nice surprise in a few years.

More like "only cash out what you can afford to not care about."

only put in what you can afford to lose.

I wouldn't worry abut the car then  .

I have 1870 left.  Waking up in the mornings the Btc price is first thing I check and for last few weeks I have been smiling ear to ear for rest of day

the worst thing is that you'll be reminded of how you sold 500 BTC for the car you see every day  

but the bright side is that you most likely have a lot more than i do 

That's still a pretty sweet ride, I was looking at something a little more tame like a Peugeot 208 or Audi A1

I bought http://www.lexus.co.uk/car-models/rx/rx-450h/#/FSport with all the bells and whistles.

The increase in the price of Bitcoin is what pushed the price up.  It cost 500 Bitcoin and some change.  The 500 Bitcoin would be worth 250% more now so its a damn expensive car.

Still, I love it so all is good.

Lose the GF! This will save a lot $$$

Clutch is on its way out, repairing it won't be cheap and I'd rather spend the £500 or so on my next car than keeping this one running. This will be the second time I've replaced it since I've had the car, this time probably because I taught my girlfriend to drive in it

$100,000 for a car? What did you buy? Also, I take your point, unless I had a Ferrari or Lambo I would be very grumpy if it effectively cost me a fortune for a regular car.

I sold 500 Btc for 119.999 to buy a car. 

Worst decision I have ever made.  The effective cost of that car is $175000. Do you want to be in the same position when Bitcoin goes over $1000?  Or over $10k which you know will happen in the next few years?

Don't sell!

Well I never thought it would have gone this fast else I would have gone all in at £6 last November! I'm not sure what the future of BTC is, it has the potential to be 100x the current value, it also could drop down to nothing as well.

I think I will hold tight and see what happens, hopefully turning what is a nice chunk of profit into something that could buy a house in 5-10 years time.

Financial risk is not something I am fond of, I don't like debts, which aside from a mortgage I am free of now.

this

personally, I wouldn't take any risks with BTC. Even being able to pay off a loan with BTC is a risk I would not take. It could crash to nothing before you have time to cash out.

It's pure profit, so live life as before and pretend you don't have it.

There's a continuum:

Do you believe Bitcoin will crash and fail soon? In which case, sell all.
Do you believe it will go to the moon over the next 5-10 years? Hold all.

For me, it's somewhere in between, could go either way, so I'll sell certain fractions as the price increases. But certainly will never sell all any time soon; I'd like to keep at least 50% of my current stash for the longest time, as a sort of lottery ticket.

pretend you never had bitcoin, keep it in there if you can afford to be without it.  I'm staying for 2 years, even more but probably 75% withdrawn when it gets to 100,000 pounds per bitcoin but imagine if countries currency became bitcoin or at least half the vendors of the countries accepted bitcoin.  I could keep half in bitcoin half in currency.

Yes.

So a couple weeks ago I cashed out some of my stash to recoup my original outlay so that all my BTC is now pure profit. Sure I am a little grumpy that they have doubled since then but thats life and I accept it.

I am in need of a new car now as mine is on a quick decline to repair bill-hell, I could cash in my BTC now and buy something pretty reasonable, about £8,000. But I'm not sure this is wise as I think we still have a long way to go with the price.

So I am wondering, should I instead take out a regular loan for the car over a short term like 2 years so the payments are highish and if I don't have the spare cash just cash out a chunk of BTC that month to cover my shortfall? This would mean that if the price increases more then I will still benefit, if the price started to tank I could just cash out or scrape by and afford it with my salary.

Thoughts?